


and can i sleep (on your couch)

by bacondoughnut



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Dysfunctional Family, Good Sibling Allison Hargreeves, Homelessness, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Nightmares, Pre-Canon, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:21:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacondoughnut/pseuds/bacondoughnut
Summary: four times allison helps klaus with his nightmares, and one time she can't. not necessarily in that order.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 97





	and can i sleep (on your couch)

**Author's Note:**

> allison putting that blanket over klaus on her couch kinda made me wonder if that's the first time she's done that, and this was born
> 
> title from "brother" by gerard way, because i can

Most houses are quiet at night.

Story books will depict children murmuring goodnights to things like the moon or the stars. Parents tucking them sweetly into bed. Where most children will lay down and rest, the only fear playing across their minds simple ones, like that of the dark.

The Hargreeves home is not most houses. Perhaps more importantly, the Hargreeves children are not most children.

Tonight, for example. Tonight the house is utterly silent. There are no late night training sessions to complete, nor youthfully rebellious plans at sneaking around for some exceedingly greasy donuts or whispered conversations. Tonight the house is utterly silent, under threat of some unspoken punishment should anyone be caught breaking curfew.

Children of only ten should be asleep by now anyway.

Only two of the children can't seem to get to sleep.

It could very easily be only one of them, except that he's decided for whatever reason to make his problems her problems, too.

"Allison?" comes the persistent whisper from the doorway.

She considers ignoring it. Feigns a deeper sleep than she's actually achieved.

For a second she's foolishly optimistic enough to believe that it's worked, until an instant later she's met with another, slightly louder whisper of, "Alli? You awake?"

If not for that strangest of mixtures of nervousness and hope in his voice, she may well have continued ignoring him.

"Yes," she says instead, sitting up with a reluctant sigh. "I'm awake, Klaus."

"Oh," he says. "Cool."

She gives him a second to elaborate. Offer any semblance of an explanation as to what brought him out of his room past curfew.

Klaus doesn't say anything, which is weird enough by itself. But then he flinches. As if at a sudden noise, only she doesn't hear anything beyond the regular city noise. Cars and a faint wind song. He glances back over his shoulder before sneaking a few steps inside her room.

She prompts, "Is everything okay?"

"I can't sleep," he says, grinning like he means to play it off as something trivial. He scratches at the back of his neck and adds, "I usually go to Ben, but he's..."

Klaus trails off, gesturing vaguely with one hand.

Allison figures Ben's asleep already. He had solo lessons with Dad today, and he's always so exhausted after using his powers for an extended period of time. Klaus probably feels guilty about waking him up, she knows she would.

Giving up any hope at falling asleep herself any time soon, she sits up a bit more and pats the mattress space in front of her.

His shoulders slump in almost relief, and he doesn't waste much time in coming right over to sit with her.

She almost regrets it. Not that she minds Klaus sitting with her. Just that she doesn't really know what Ben usually does when Klaus comes to him with trouble sleeping. Is she supposed to talk to him? Wait for him to talk to her?

She clears her throat and begins to ask something, she's not sure what, at the same time he opens his mouth to speak. In chorus they stumble over their words, gesturing for the other to speak, and in the end the silence just picks back up it's steady march. Klaus, she notices, keeps sending glances back over his shoulder.

He could be nervous at Dad or Pogo showing up in the doorway. Or, "Is there a ghost talking to you?"

"No," Klaus is quick to reply, snapping his head back around to look at her.

Allison nods like she believes him, but she finds her gaze following where his wanders an instant later, despite knowing she can't see whatever he does.

Without much to offer in the way of help, especially with Klaus not readily volunteering what the problem is exactly, she says quietly, "We're gonna get in trouble if Dad finds you."

"Sure," Klaus says, moving to leave.

"Wait," she says, suddenly feeling bad for pointing it out. He has to have known that already, and he risked coming here anyway. "You could stay for a bit."

He's quick enough to resettle that she imagines she's made the right call.

He looks back over his shoulder, the other side this time, with an expression that's half sneer and half grimace. Begins to say something to the presence he denies being there, then rakes a hand over his face and turns back to Allison instead. He admits with a pathetic whimper, "I'm so tired."

She believes him.

The bags beneath his eyes seem to indicate tonight isn't the only night he's been having trouble sleeping. Him already having a routine for this with Ben, too, would seem to imply this is a recurring issue. And it's difficult to see in the dark, or maybe the dark only amplifies it, but he just looks so desperate.

"Maybe," she starts before cutting herself off uncertainly.

It's probably not a good idea. They'll get in trouble, if Dad finds out.

But Klaus perks up at the suggestion of a suggestion. Echoes hopefully, "Maybe?"

"I could," Allison says cautiously. "Rumor you to sleep. Just this once."

He looks down at the floor for a second, and she almost starts to think she's made him uncomfortable with the suggestion. Before she can back out he's turning back to her and nodding. Asking, "Would you mind?"

She can't see a reason she would offer if she minded.

She shakes her head anyway. Says, "No."

Klaus frowns. Looks back and her and says, "Could you...could you make it so I don't have any dreams either?"

She wants to ask if he has bad dreams. If he wants to talk about them. Maybe tell him that she gets bad dreams sometimes, too. But there's something vulnerable in the way he asks so instead she simply shrugs.

"I bet I could."

Something resembling but not quite reaching a smile plays across his face. He thanks her, and quietly they both make their way out of Allison's room and down the hall towards his.

She stands a little awkwardly at the foot of his bed while he lays down. Klaus, for his part, seems too tired or too relieved at the prospect of sleep to worry about awkward or Dad catching them talking past curfew. She watches his eyes flit almost nervously towards something behind her and doesn't have the heart to worry about getting in trouble.

"You can tell me," she says, hopefully encouragingly.

"Tell you what?"

"Why you keep looking over at the wall behind me."

She never actually asks him flat out like that again after that. He looks, momentarily, so betrayed by the question. Flounders for an answer for a moment before coming up with, "That stain over there on the wall."

"Stain?" Allison echoes, turning to see what he means.

There is, sure enough, a stain on the wall behind her. It looks to be about a whole foot to the left of where he's looking, but she thinks it best to take the out.

With a frown, she asks, "How'd you even spill soup on the wall like that?"

"Dance party with soup," Klaus answers, like she was supposed to have known that.

Once he's settled she steps a little closer, asking quietly, "You ready?"

"Yeah," Klaus says, nodding. "Yeah, thank you."

"Okay. I heard a rumor," she says. "That you fell asleep and didn't have any dreams all night."

There's a distinct impression of relief in his face, although it's gone in a second as he falls fast asleep.

She waits a second until she's sure he's asleep and then she turns to go back to her own bed. She isn't sure what good it will do, if any, but on her way out she finds herself sending a sharp glare in the direction Klaus had been looking before. A silent warning towards whoever it is that's been frightening her brother.

She isn't sure they're even still around to see it, but she leaves hoping she's done him some good. Climbs back into her own bed before she, too, falls fast asleep.

* * *

Klaus doesn't mention it at all after that and so neither does she.

She finds herself torn between relief and regret when he goes so long without asking her for the favor again. Maybe he's sleeping better. Maybe he prefers whatever comforts Ben provides over Allison's little trick.

Either way, he doesn't come back to her room the next night, or the next, or the next. After a time, Allison almost forgets he ever even asked in the first place. Forgets all about his deliberate request that he go the whole night without dreaming at all.

In fact, the next time it comes up is at least a year later.

The bad dreams, it seems, have begun to worsen. Allison knows, just like the whole rest of the house knows, because Klaus wakes them all up that night screaming in his sleep.

Well, he's not quite loud enough to wake everyone. Some of their rooms are further away, some of them manage to sleep through it. Only Vanya, whose room is right next door to Klaus, gets so worried about him that she runs and wakes up Ben. Who, in turn, wakes up Diego. And the commotion wakes Luther, and Luther wakes Dad.

Or at least, that's the way Allison thinks it went. She was busy trying to wake Klaus, and anyway, it's such a blur she can't totally remember.

What she does remember is that they all wound up standing in the hallway together. The whole family, apart from Mom. Even Pogo was there.

And Klaus seems torn between embarrassment and a lingering trace of the fear. Dad doesn't understand that Klaus can't control what he dreams about, she doesn't think, because he gets so mad about it.

Scolds Klaus in front of everyone for his behavior. Tells him that it's weakness and he should have better control of his fear by now. Says that it's, "Dreadfully childish behavior, Number Four."

"But I _am_ a child," Klaus argues pitifully.

"No, you're not," Dad says, cold and harsh and Dad. "You're a member of the Umbrella Academy. Now I expect you to act like it..."

Dad's lecture goes on long enough that all the emotion so visible on Klaus's young face--Allison's always thought of him as young, even if they are the same age--solidifies into something like an ice sculpture. She wants to reach out and squeeze his hand, pat his shoulder or something, just so he knows. Maybe just this once Dad is wrong. Maybe it's okay.

She doesn't. She fears Dad will notice and then he'll be yelling at the both of them.

Klaus nods vacantly when Dad asks if he understands, and they all scatter like roaches under a flashlight when Dad barks at them to get back to bed. She listens like everyone else. Climbs back beneath her own covers and stars at the backs of her eyelids and waits.

She can't seem to fall asleep. She keeps picturing Klaus's face in the hall. How panicked he'd sounded when he woke her with his shouts.

She waits until she's certain Dad's gone back to bed and then, with a determined nod, sneaks softly down the hall to Klaus's room. Pushes the door open slowly.

There's a faint sniffling from within but it cuts off abruptly at the sound of the door creak.

"Klaus?"

"Allison?" That's Diego's voice.

She steps inside and sure enough there's Diego, sitting in front of an upset looking Klaus. Looking utterly lost as to what to do about it, but to his credit, he is here. Nudging Klaus's knee with his own as if that's going to be sufficient comfort.

Maybe it's a stupid question, but before she can think to reconsider, she's asking, "Are you crying?"

"No," Klaus says, wiping his eyes with the heels of his palms.

Allison shoots a look over at Diego as she steps further inside, and with a discernible eyeroll he scoots over a little to make room for her on the bed. It's not Diego's fault, but girls really are better at this stuff. That's why Mom's so nice and Dad's so mean.

"I don't think you're weak for getting upset," she says gently.

"N-neither do I," Diego says, offended, as if she were implying that he did.

"I'm not upset," Klaus says with equal indignance. He looks down at his hands, tearing at a loose thread in the blankets, before turning back to them with a frustrated sigh and explaining, "If I go back to sleep I'll have that dream again. But we have training in the morning, and I can't be tired in training. So no matter what I do Dad's going to..."

He cuts himself off with a hitch in his breath. Allison supposes it doesn't matter how the sentence was going to end. Whatever Dad's going to do won't be good.

Diego, apparently unable to think up any words for the occasion, bumps Klaus's knee again in solidarity.

"Well what if you could fall asleep without the dreams?" Allison suggests.

"Don't be stupid," Diego says. "How's he gonna d-How's he gonna do that?"

"Hello, I have super powers, dummy."

"You shouldn't do that."

"Who asked you?" Klaus tells him irritably.

"If you know another way to keep Dad from getting mad, fine," Allison says, because she knows that he doesn't.

He proves that he doesn't have another idea by giving her that angry look, and then huffing and getting up. He stalks out of the room without another word and the door closes inaudibly behind him. Allison can't help but be grateful that, despite not approving, he still does his best not to wake Dad again.

Klaus looks for a second after Diego, then turns to Allison with an uncharacteristically polite smile.

"Thank you," he says softly.

Allison just nods. Gives him a second to get comfortable and then tells him, "I heard a rumor that you went right to sleep, and didn't have any bad dreams all night."

* * *

After that second time it becomes a little more like a routine.

Klaus almost never actually asks her for the help. He'll just knock ever so gently at her door, asking if she's awake just like that first time. They always talk for a minute or so, she's hesitant to offer in case talking is all he wants from her. That's so rarely the case, on nights like those.

Eventually she'll offer, as if just thinking of the solution.

"Trouble sleeping?" she'll ask, as casual as if they're talking about bad weather or something.

"Yeah," he'll admit. "D'you mind?"

"Yeah," she'll say. "But I'll help you anyway, 'cause I'm an awesome sister."

Over time he does get a little less hesitant in coming to her door. He never gets any more willing to discuss the issue with her, though. Won't go into detail on whether it's a nightmare night or a haunting night. Won't tell her what he dreams about that's so horrible anyway.

He always makes sure to thank her, sometimes more than once. And she'll follow him back to his room--by now they know every creaky floorboard of that hallway floor right down to the centimeter of where it creaks--and tell him to go to sleep. Neither of them ever mention it, to each other or to anyone else.

This time is a little different, though.

For one thing, he's not coming to her from his room. His footsteps approach from the wrong end of the hallway, she almost doesn't think it's Klaus. For another, he's shivering and fourteen and he's drunk as a skunk.

"Alli," he says, less a whisper and more an attempt at one. _"Psst._ Allison, my dear, sweet sister, whom I love so dearly."

"I'm up," she answers tiredly.

She's got significantly less sympathy, she thinks, for this Klaus than for the little frightened one. Or for that matter when he wakes her up, instead of coming to her before she's fallen asleep.

That is, until he flops dramatically down onto her bed, his back sprawled over her legs, and she can't even be mad because when she flicks her lamp on she realizes there are tears in his eyes.

She feels some or her annoyance soften. Asks, "Are you alright, Klaus?"

"Me? I'm fabulous," he says, giving her a double thumbs up, with one hand still wrapped around the neck of a glass bottle. She's sure the cheerfulness can be attributed to that bottle. The underlying fragility in his expression, on the other hand, belongs solely to something else.

He is, she notices, sporting one hell of a shiner on the other side of his face. A frown tugs at her lips and she says, "Who gave that to you?"

"Hm?" he asks, glancing down at the bottle in his hands. "Oh, Tony."

"The booze or the bruise?"

"Yeah," Klaus says, giggling obnoxiously.

Knowing Klaus, she can't say for sure that he did nothing to earn the bruise. She can't say she hasn't wanted to deck him herself a few times. Still, this Tony person should know better than to give someone as baby-faced as Klaus any alcohol. And she can't find a person on a first name alone.

"Who's Tony?"

"Unimportant," he says, turning his head to the side to look at her but making no move to sit up. He adds, as if it's somehow tragic and completely hilarious at once, "We had a bit of a falling out."

"About what?"

"He was a little too handsy for my taste," Klaus tells her with a rueful smile.

Allison's quick to finally sit up, disregarding the human person weighing down her legs. She already feels the rage boiling beneath her skin and she doesn't even know the full story yet. She says, "Klaus, did this guy hurt you?"

Suddenly the bruise is a little less amusing.

"Nah, no way. Our falling out was more just him falling out," Klaus says, moving to sit up. Probably annoyed at all the jostling his would-be pillows just gave him. He pauses, distracted or just for effect, and finishes lamely, "Of a window."

She's sure she looks as baffled as she sounds when she asks, "You threw him out a window?"

"Little bit, yeah. I'd say it was more of a gentle shove, but hey, you say potato, I say potato."

She won't bother telling him that it's tomato, or that he's supposed to pronounce one of them different than the other.

She has no doubt this guy had it coming. In fact, as Klaus raises the bottle to his lips and his sleeve drops a bit, and she catches sight of the hand shaped bruise dark against his pale wrist, she's certain a fall from a window isn't half of what he deserves.

But this story's just a little difficult to piece together with the snippets Klaus easily offers her. She sighs, leans back against the headboard. Says, just to clarify, just in case, "He didn't hurt you, though?"

Besides the shiner, that is.

"No, he just tried to," Klaus says with an easy, dismissive nod.

"Okay," she says, relaxing just a little.

"He tried to," Klaus repeats quietly. More, she thinks, to himself than to her.

Something in his expression crumbles. He brings his legs up to his chest, gaze ostensibly focused on inspecting the label on the bottle. He might be turned away, but she recognizes the tears in the shake of his shoulders and the sudden quiet.

She reaches a hand out for his shoulder. It's only there a second before he's turning to hug her, breath strong with whisky and skin cold with the melted snow still clinging to his shirt.

"It's gonna be okay," she says, because it's the first thing she thinks to say. It doesn't seem to have much effect, he only clings to her tighter. After a second she offers, "You want me to get Ben for you?"

Because he always seems to know what Klaus needs better than she does. Because Klaus goes to him to talk, and to her for mind control.

But he pulls away from her the instant she says it. Shakes his head adamantly, insisting, "You can't tell Ben. He'll only say 'I told you so.' I so don't need another 'I told you so.' Please."

"Okay, I won't tell Ben."

Klaus nods. Smiles. Hugs her again.

She lets him until he's not shivering quite so much. He laughs at her when she suggests that he brush his teeth, and she has to explain that no, she's not joking, and "Klaus you're breath stinks, I mean it."

Eventually she gets him to his room. Tells him, "Get some rest, okay?"

"I don't want to," he whines stubbornly. He reaches out to grab something from his nightstand, and when he comes up emptyhanded he asks with a frown, "Where'd my drink go?"

Allison took it. Probably not soon enough, it doesn't feel like there's much left in it anyway.

She shrugs. "I dunno."

"Help me find it. Please?"

"Klaus, go to sleep."

"Alliso _nnnnn."_

This, he forgets to whisper.

If he keeps up like this, he'll wake people up. And in this state she doubts his ability to lie convincingly, and then they'll all know whether he wants them to or not. Not to mention the consequences if he wakes up Dad.

Allison treads lightly over towards Klaus's bed, says quietly, "Hey Klaus? I heard a rumor that you were really sleepy, and you went to bed."

With a small yawn, Klaus nods and finally lays down.

She turns to go then but she stops about halfway towards the door, sending a look back over her shoulder at Klaus. She gives a light sigh before doubling back to pull a blanket up over him, and then she sneaks back to her room like nothing happened.

* * *

By the next day it's become clear that night is another one of the nights they're never going to address again. Klaus doesn't broach the subject, and Allison frankly doesn't have the guts to. And if some guy by the name of Tony happens to decide suddenly to turn himself in for selling drugs and alcohol to minors, then that's just a happy coincidence.

But the deeper Klaus gets in with those new habits of his, the drugs and the drinking and whatever else he does when he's sneaking out of the Academy, the less Allison sees of him. Not just in their wildly restricted free time.

He stops needing her help to make the nightmares and the phantoms go away long enough to get some rest.

Not that she would call what he's doing these days rest.

It's not like he was asking for her help more than once or twice every few weeks anyway. But a time comes when Allison goes a whole three months without Klaus waking her up in the middle of the night. She finds, strangely, she's more worried about him now than she ever was when she knew all the bad dreams that were haunting him.

When the shit really hits the fan is after Ben dies.

Klaus handles it remarkably, shockingly well for awhile. In fact, he doesn't seem much affected in the slightest, like he hasn't lost anyone at all.

Or maybe she's just not paying enough attention. She'll admit she gets a little too absorbed in her own grief, and in the never ending debate about who was really at fault and how much fault they have, to pay much attention to her siblings' grief. Especially now that she and Klaus seem to have grown even further apart.

It's exactly three months since Ben's funeral. That's the next time Klaus comes to her for help.

She gets the impression that maybe it's taken him that long to properly process everything. She hasn't seen him so upset since Ben actually died. He is better at hiding it these days though. Maybe he was always good at hiding it. Maybe Allison's just gotten less good at searching for it.

Either way, Klaus comes to her room hours after their curfew. That didn't used to be unusual.

He's high or drunk or both. That's definitely not unusual anymore.

Anyway, he's talking all sorts of nonsense when he comes to see her. He drops down heavily onto the edge of her mattress when she invites him in.

Given his appearance, it seems like the reasonable thing to ask, "Y'okay, Klaus?"

"Aren't I always?" Klaus says, smiling brittle and hollow like birds' bones. A skeptical eyebrow from Allison is enough to crack the lie. He looks away and says, as if just realizing it, "Ben died."

She knows he isn't just realizing it. He was at the funeral. More than that, he was on the mission when Ben died.

"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, he did."

"Doesn't seem fair, does it?"

Of course it doesn't seem fair. What kind of a question is that? Ben didn't deserve what happened to him.

Allison swallows the brief flicker of frustration. What doesn't seem fair is that they all had to deal with losing Ben months ago, and Klaus has apparently been too high to even think about it.

She manages a gentle, "What doesn't?"

"Always thought," Klaus says casually, like changing the subject. "If one of us was gonna die young...or youngest, anyway, we might still die y...Anyway, thought it would be me."

"Klaus--" she starts.

She's a little bit grateful to be cut off. She's not sure what she's supposed to say in response to that.

"I don't think he can get back," Klaus says, shaking his head.

That takes her a second. Generally no, most people don't come back when they die.

And then she remembers it's Klaus that she's talking to. And maybe the reason he hasn't been mourning like them all this time is that he's been waiting for Ben's ghost to appear. Maybe he's been holding on hope that this wasn't their last farewell.

"Oh, Klaus."

"He's stuck," Klaus says with an empty chuckle and a smile that doesn't appear to reach his eyes. They so rarely do with him. He claps his hands together and repeats, "He's stuck! Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure it's 'cause of me."

That is what Dad told them, after all. Well, not Klaus specifically, but each of them. She doesn't know why she's surprised Klaus believes him.

He didn't, she doesn't think, weigh in much in their initial debate on the topic. Now she thinks about it, she doesn't remember where he was after the funeral, while they were so busy fighting. Too angry with their grief to do much else, even if them fighting was never what Ben even wanted.

Klaus shakes his head once more, murmuring some nonsense rambling about a light. About, "I asked him to stay. I wanted him to--"

"I know, Klaus. We all did," she says reassuringly, reaching a hand out for his shoulder.

"That's not..." he begins to say, before something else crossing his mind and the thread is dropped. He groans and flops backwards less than gracefully across Allison's mattress. Her legs, at least, are out of the way this time. He says something about a light again beneath his breath, she thinks she catches the word 'trapped.'

There's just a smidge of resentment buried in her chest, if she's being honest. That Klaus would come to her for comfort about this when she could never have gone to him. No, he was out partying while they all mourned.

She does her best to ignore it.

Klaus has a problem. It's not his fault, she reminds herself. And it's only gotten worse and worse the more they ignore it.

He derails the train of thought with a low whistle, and a remark of, "We let him down big time, huh, Al?"

Yes, she supposes they did.

"It wasn't your fault, Klaus."

"You don't know that. I made him...I did that," Klaus says, sliding gracelessly over the side of her mattress to sit instead on the floor. She's not totally sure they're talking about the same thing. She doesn't get the chance to clarify, he's already saying, "I had this dream where it's little Five's ghost following me around instead, and then it's both of them. I can't even tell what's the dream sometimes. They keep stealing my spaghetti."

"That's horrible," Allison says flatly.

Klaus just nods. Moves to stand with a sudden thought, stumbles like Bambi on ice before making it. Says to Allison's doorway, "Do you even like spaghetti?"

"Listen, Klaus, maybe you should get some rest."

"I can't," he says, turning back to her as he scrubs his hands over his face. He paces back and forth a couple of steps and moans, "I can't. What if I wake up and Ben's gone?"

"Ben _is_ gone," she says firmly, getting up for the sake of placing a bracing hand on his shoulder. "Hey, I'm worried about you."

"Don't be," he tells her sharply. Then, "You're right, you're right. I'm sorry."

He brushes her hand from his shoulder so he can pace another few steps away. There are track marks up his arm, and she's certain that's a hint of Dad's good scotch on his breath, however faint.

In the instant she realizes it, she realizes how right Klaus was, about them having let Ben down big time.

Whether Dad's right or not about Ben being their fault doesn't matter. They were supposed to learn something. They were supposed to start looking out for each other, like a real family is supposed to do. Instead all they did was push each other further away.

She doesn't think she can fix that. She doesn't even know if she wants to, to be honest.

But Klaus. Klaus is standing right here, and maybe she can do something for him.

"Hey," she says gently, approaching him once more. Slowly and clearly, not unlike how one might approach a deer they wanted to get close to in the wild. "I know you don't want to, but you need to get some rest, Klaus. Why don't you let me help you?"

He looks at her, and then for an instant at something just past her. It's to whatever he sees just beyond her that he nods. And it could be a ghost or a hallucination or more spilled soup on her wall for all she cares, because when he looks back to her he says, ever so softly, "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Sure."

"Awesome."

She walks him back to his room just like she used to do. Only while they walk she thinks about something, and she can't seem to stop thinking it the whole brief way there.

Rumoring Klaus to sleep won't help him forever.

When he drops down onto his bed, Allison sits at the edge of the mattress next to him, assists with his uncoordinated attempts to pull a blanket up over his torso.

"I heard a rumor," she says thoughtfully. Deliberately. "That you wanted to get--"

She aborts the attempt at the flicker of confusion in his eyes because those aren't her usual words for this. It sparks it's own flicker of guilt in her chest for some reason.

Then she reminds herself this is to help him. He needs help.

She starts again, "I heard a rumor...that you got sobe--"

This time it's Klaus that cuts her off. With a nice firm punch to the throat, no less. Apparently he's still sober enough to aim a punch properly.

The hit knocks her right off the edge of the mattress. She gets back to her feet with a heavy gasp.

In the meantime, Klaus is scrambling off of his bed and towards the door. The door that, inadvertently, Allison's actually blocking his route to. But he moves with a steady chant of, "No, no, no, no. Don't, Allison. Don't."

"Jesus, Klaus," she says upon recovering her voice properly, one hand at her throat.

Truth be told, she didn't think he could hit so hard.

The second she opens her mouth he claps both hands over his ears, shaking his head frantically.

"Don't," he says, and she thinks the only reason he doesn't just drop to his knees to beg is because he wants to preserve a hasty exit. He looks so desperate. "Please, Allison, don't."

She's seen Klaus afraid before, sure, but she's never seen him look terrified of _her._

She still thinks she should do it. She feels like such a coward for not doing it. Feels selfish, because maybe keeping Klaus in her life is more important to her than keeping Klaus alive. That has to be true, if she's willing to quit so easy.

Maybe he'll get sober on his own.

Maybe he won't.

"I won't," she says, and means it. "I'm sorry, Klaus. I won't, I promise."

She claps a hand over her mouth just for good measure.

They might look truly stupid, if anyone else stumbled in on them right now. A stand off, speak no evil, hear no evil style. And she has no idea how long they stay that way, each silently searching the other's face for intention.

Eventually that's what happens. There are footsteps just behind them, and she turns to find Luther standing there. Frowning. Concerned. Asking, "What's going on?"

Allison finally drops her hand away to answer, and she pretends not to notice Klaus tensing as she says, "It's nothing. We're fine."

"Alright," Luther says skeptically, eyes darting back and forth between her and Klaus. "I thought I heard shouting."

"Just a misunderstanding."

"Well you know it's past curfew."

"Yeah, we know," she answers brusquely. She doesn't mean to snap at him, but it's sort of obvious they know it's past curfew, come on dude. With a heavy sigh she shoots a look back at Klaus. "Sorry, Klaus. Goodnight."

And she makes her exit with whatever grace she can.

* * *

The irony of it isn't lost on her. That, in an attempt to fix the issue that's been distancing Klaus from her, she only seems to have succeeded in distancing him further.

He goes so far as to avoid her for a few days. When he gets over that, their dynamic is still different.

He wasn't exactly seeking out her company quite so much these days anyone. Now he makes a point to avoid it. He doesn't hang out with her one on one, and he certainly doesn't come to her again with his trouble sleeping.

She tells herself it's for the better, that he's grown out of asking her favors. It's not like he was going to be able to count on her to get to sleep his whole life. But that's a fleeting comfort, seeing as it was never that big of an issue. He only ever asked her on the nights where it got really bad. Now the only assistance he'll have to turn to is the very thing she was trying to get him away from.

The entire time they're living in the Hargreeves mansion, from then on, Klaus never asks Allison's help again. Not once.

In fact, it's not until she's moved out that he does.

Truth be told, she doesn't know where he's at these days. They all fell out of contact with one another when they started to move out. It turns out the only thing making them a family was that they lived within the same walls. The day that changes, it's like no one cares anymore.

She's surprised for more than one reason, then, when Klaus turns up at her apartment door one night.

She's been on her own for a couple of months now. Just started planning her move to California, actually. Not that she's mentioned any of that to anyone in the family.

It's just past ten o'clock at night when there's a knock at the door.

"Klaus?"

Surprise or no, she's got to say she's excited to see him.

"Hey, well if it isn't one of my favorite sisters," Klaus says warmly, pulling her into a hug.

"You only have two sisters," she says into the fur of his coat, returning the hug in double nonetheless. She pulls away and grins. Offers, "It's good to see you. Come inside?"

"Love to."

"You hungry? I think I have some Thai leftovers in the fridge."

"Oh, I'm all good actually. I just came over because I thought you could use some company for a night or two," Klaus says, flashing one of his charming, 'please help me' smiles at her. "I could take the couch."

She puts a hand over her heart, feigning flattery. Asking, "You'd do that for me?"

He knows she knows he's bullshitting her. But he offers a casual shrug anyway. Says, "Well, I hate to think of you getting lonely in this beautiful, warm apartment of yours."

"Couch is all yours," she says, with a not unaffectionate eyeroll.

As if she could possibly turn him away with it raining like it is.

"Oh, thank you," he says, clasping his hands in front of him like a prayer. It's nice to see his dramatics haven't changed, at the very least. It's nice to see him trusting her for a favor, too.

"I'll get you some tea."

He calls after her as she vanishes into the kitchen, "Got anything just a little stronger?"

She does but she won't be sharing it with him. Not tonight, at any rate.

Klaus looks, frankly, terrible. And maybe she can't help him with his sleeping issues like she used to, but she can at the very least do this. Herbal sleepytime tea. At this point, Klaus probably has some sort of immunity to any kind of altering substance, even sleepytime tea, but it's worth the effort anyway.

They sit down on the couch and catch up for a bit over tea.

Naturally, it doesn't make Klaus in the least bit sleepier. In defense of the tea, she's got no idea what else he's got in his system right now. But when it starts to get too much later she does have to go to bed. She's got actual adult things to do in the morning now.

She starts to get up, but Klaus catches her wrist before she can. It's a very loose grip, almost to the point where it's like he can have plausible deniability at having requested she stay, should she choose to ignore it. She looks back at him with a frown, and he asks simply, "Stay a little longer?"

The 'I don't want to be alone' goes unspoken, but delivered all the same.

Allison sighs and sits back down. Asks, "Rough night?"

"You," Klaus says through a chuckle, leaning his head back against the back of the couch and puffing out a cloud of smoke from his cigarette. "Have no idea."

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"Not particularly, no," he says easily. But he looks over at her anyway and adds, like he's cluing her in on some hilarious secret, "I haven't slept in like sixty two hours. Oh, would you look at that! Sixty three."

"What? Why?"

Klaus shrugs, like the answer is a little too mundane to really be worth words. He takes another puff of his cigarette and asks suddenly, "Is that shirt white with black stripes, or black with white stripes?"

"It doesn't matter."

"You're right, it's definitely black with white stripes," Klaus says to the chair across from him, nodding. Then, "Hey, shut up. I'm fine."

"He said to my armchair," she comments dryly. "Come on, what's wrong, Klaus?"

Klaus looks pensively down at the cigarette between his fingers, flicks some ash out onto the couch cushions. He shrugs and says with utter sincerity, "I really thought your shirt was white with black stripes, if I'm being honest."

Allison sighs and gives up. Not on Klaus, never on Klaus. Just on getting him to be honest with her.

"Okay, Klaus," she says, getting up off the couch. She gives his arm an encouraging pat and tells him, "Try and get some sleep, alright?"

He nods at her. Puts his cigarette out on the ashtray on her coffee table. Dons an enthusiastic grin and says, "Hey! I just thought of a genius idea."

"An idea?" Allison echoes skeptically.

Klaus's ideas are typically either very good or very, very bad. Generally the latter.

"You," he says, indicating her with an index finger. As he continues he points back to himself, saying, "Could rumor me. Into sleeping. Nice and sound."

Allison starts.

If it were anyone else, she might thinks this was some sort of test.

"I don't know, Klaus," she says with a frown.

If he's here he's deciding to place some trust in her again. That, or he's just honestly that desperate. Either way, she doesn't want to risk losing him again already.

"C'mon, please," he says, slouching ridiculously lower on the couch. "You have no idea how _exhausted_ I am. I can't sleep since the overdose. I've tried everything."

"Hang on, did you just say overdose?"

"What?" Klaus falters. "No, no, you heard me wrong. I said clover flow. It's a yoga move, I sprained my wrist. Super painful."

"Klaus," she says, stepping back around to the couch again. "Please. Just be honest with me."

"I am. I am," he says with an attempt at an innocent laugh, putting his hands up in front of him in a gesture of mock surrender.

Allison levels him with a patient stare.

He sends a look back at her armchair, then rolls his eyes. Lets out a heavy, reluctant sigh. And says, as honest as he's probably ever going to be capable of, "Fine, fine. I don't have anywhere else to go, it's kind of tough to sleep on the streets in this biblical storm we've got going on."

"You can't go back home?" He doesn't deign that with a response, just raises an eyebrow at her. She nods, allows, "Right. You really don't have anywhere else to go?"

It's not meant to sound quite so patronizing.

She still doesn't buy that the word overdose was a simple slip of the tongue. It's difficult to get the full truth when the lying is pathological with him, though.

Klaus gives her a 'what are you gonna do' sort of shrug. Answers, "What can I say? I'm a free spirit. I can't be tied down."

"Yeah, okay," Allison nods. "I guess, if it's that important to you, I could help you out."

"You mean it?"

"Yeah."

"Thank you, thank you," he says, sagging against the back of the couch with so much relief she can't help but agree.

She collects the tea mugs and walks them back to the kitchen sink. Comes around back into the living room to say goodnight to Klaus, except when she makes it back around she finds that she doesn't have to anymore.

He's slumped over on his side across the couch, head pillowed on the arm cushion.

She can't find the words to explain why exactly it is she's relieved.

She hovers a second to be sure he's asleep, then grabs a throw blanket off the back of the armchair and pulls it up over his shoulders. He stirs a little but doesn't wake.

A small smile pulls at the corners of her mouth despite herself.

"Goodnight, Klaus."


End file.
